Saturday wouldn't be Saturday if I didn't meet my friends at the Otago Farmers Market. We are there by 8 a.m. Any later - no parking, too crowded and the choice items are already snapped up. Always on my list: Havoc pork, free-range eggs, coriander, Mr Goddard's potatoes, seasonal fruit, and Whitestone blue cheese.

We see the same "early-bird-catches-the-worm" shoppers and have catch up with the stall holders about which famous people have made the rounds, what is fresh that day and what is new. We hang out for the first of the asparagus, the sweet strawberries, tight buds of peonies, the earliest new potatoes - jersey bennies. We always meet old friends,have a chat, lose each other and have a coffee.

Suprisingly, we talk about food and recipies almost the entire time. This is a market for people who cook and we usually head back home to do just that.